Shiver
by Kaki-kun
Summary: Continued thanks to reviewers, and will only continue to be updated with reviews. ItaKaka. Chapter 7 is K POV! !.!.! maybe I’ll be graced with joy you could never show or feel!.!.! Want each ch 1000 words! RR!
1. Hate

You felt like you were going to die.

I know it. I've acknowledged that feeling in other people.

You wish you could move. You wish you could clasp those now gloved, pale hands together into a seal and just blow this forsaken place down to the ground. But you know you couldn't if your hands were free anyway.

You know you can't because you're slowly dying.

It isn't the blood. It's warm and radiant as it trails the curves of your face and down your bounded arms. No, that's your life slipping away. It's crimson and pearly yet tastes metallic in my mouth. It's like relief in a liquid form as I scooped some of it up from one of the deep wounds below your breast and bring it up to my mouth.

Do you still feel pain? Is it beyond you now?

No, you're human. You're still with me in this room.

Is it cold to you? You're shivering a lot.

Is it from the blood loss?

No.

It's because your chakra is slowly escaping your body. You don't realize how much it insulates you until its floating away into the bindings. I don't think you still realize it.

I told Kisame it was wise to use sharkskin for bindings. I can feel that heat wafting from your body.

You miss it don't you?

I'm sure.

Your mismatches eyes are distant. They won't focus on me. Would you want them to if you could? Probably not. My eyes are... death.

The sharkskin continues to react to that blue energy coming from your pores. Does it burn? It looks like a cold flickering flame. It's going out. You're going out.

Don't go out yet. I like this. This is amusing. I've been waiting for this a long while.

That's what I hate about this game, it always ends too soon. You don't have much more time, even though I want to keep going. That's how it always is.

You seem so tired. It's not something I would say about you; you seem more relaxed than anything normally. Calm. You're breaths are still calm.

Are you still scared? I don't think so. You're a little different than the others. You know you're going to die. It's just a fact that needs no emotion.

Maybe it was your ability to be so analytic that had drawn me to you. The Kyuubi is just a bonus. I always dreamed of doing this to you even back before when we were in the ANBU.

I always unnerved you, didn't I? I could tell you never felt comfortable around me.

Are you comfortable now in those life sucking bindings? Unlikely.

Do you know where you are? I want to tell you. It wouldn't hurt; after all, you are going to die.

But I can't. They won't let me. I don't want to quarrel with them. I just want to stand here over you. Watch your breaths grow shallow.

It's dark in here, but I have a feeling your pupils are dilated too much.

Damn that eye.

Uncle Obito was a fool. But I loved him, when I was a fool too. He used to make funny faces to me and lets me wear his goggles. He smelled of sweat and dirt and grass and homemade biscuits. He used to visit me every weekend and tell me stories about his team, about how he had to save the prodigy Hatake constantly from battles.

And you took him away from me. I'll never forget sitting by the window that rainy day he was supposed to visit, waiting for his black spiky hair to come around the corner soaking wet.

He never came. And it's all your fault.

I want to kick you. You _stole_ his sharingan. You _robbed_ him of his life.

Just like I'm going to rob you of yours.

That's what I wanted when I heard he had died saving you.

Did he really save you then? I wish you'd answer me, but I don't think you can hear me.

I was angry when I joined the ANBU and found you were there. My kind of anger of course.

Silent and unfeeling. Hate.

Your blood is sticky between my fingers. Makes me want to clench and relax them. Feel the dexterity digging up under my nails. Sweet life, sour death. I like your blood.

But you're not dead yet. Good, that's very good. Stay with me in your suffering.

You don't belong with the Uchiha. You know that. Your hair is silver, it doesn't contrast that soft white skin like our onyx hair does. Your sharingan won't turn off. You won't rest because that is the price of your ignorance.

I want to kill you.

What's this? So there is life in your eyes. No, your eye. One of them isn't yours. But they look up at me. In a way. They're still so distant. But they fix on me, or near me, something in my general direction. I'd like to think it's me, but I can't tell everything about you.

What are you thinking?

Can you recognize me here?

You seem pathetic lying there. If you are in fact in the right state of mind, you'd probably be seething. You have pride. Or had.

But how much pride can you hold dying there at the feet of a former comrade?

You seem tired. Older maybe. I'm surprised you're still here with me. Most others would have died by now.

Yeah, you're special. You took my Obito.

The Yondaime. He said Obito would have wanted you to live.

Yeah, he's right, you're a survivor aren't you? But you'll die here below my feet.

Or will you? Somehow, if it's possible. You're bound with sharkskin by your wrists and ankles, bleeding down your sides, shivering...

Yeah, you're different. You'll live. I don't know how, you just…will. I want to brush that silver hair out of his eye. What did he see in you?

I hate you.


	2. Special

I thought this would happen.

You kind of look peaceful sleeping there. I don't know how you could possibly sleep out here, it's too damn bright and hot I think. Of course, I have always been mostly intolerant to light.

I didn't think they'd let me take you out here objection-less. But they did. I was surprised; they acted like it was no big deal and let me drag you out here. I think they're afraid of me too. Everyone else is.

But you're not afraid. You're just lying there on the grass, snug between the warmth of the sun and the blades of grass.

Your breaths are still calm but it doesn't smell like blood anymore. There's a nice summer breeze, with hints of the ocean not far east from here. Just a bit of salt water in the air. Not much.

Why do I always think of Uncle Obito when I'm near you?

You're still shivering though. You must be cold inside, in place of the warm heat that radiated in waves from your body. It was nice while it lasted.

Well, maybe not to you.

Your chakra was a silvery light blue, the way spun in the air untamed made me stir. It was very… appealing.

Do you still know I'm here?

You must know you're outside.

Afterall, we were on the same team in the ANBU. You were the scout, using your dog-nins and sensitive nose to pick out the enemy in the area while I move in behind and exterminate. Your nose should have definitely picked up the outdoor smells of pine needles and ocean side sand a while ago.

No, don't worry. Those days in the ANBU were just fine. I didn't hate my clan members. They just got in my way. It was for the best.

You think I'm crazy, don't you? To each his own I suppose. I'll never understand how you can be so sickeningly loyal to those people when you have the strength to wreak havoc.

It's not your style, right? But why should you hide behind that mask and let everything just pass by you? That doesn't make sense.

Maybe I can liberate you someday.

You don't want to be liberated, do you?

Nonetheless, they're better off dead. My father knew far too much about my works in the ANBU and was starting to get the other Uchiha elite riled up in suspicions. So what if they're suspicions were true, they were irritating me. I needed to test my Mangekyou anyway. It's kind of tiresome, but it works.

Of course, you already know this, don't you? Even if you could have the Mangekyou, you wouldn't be able to handle it as well. Hell, you nearly pass out by using the full Sharingan for five minutes at a time.

But what am I expecting? You are just the son of a coward, gifted with a powerful asset.

You're mad at me now, aren't you? I can't say. Maybe you should tell me.

Yeah, I heard about your father. The Legendary White Fang. Who knew you were _his_ son? Don't worry about his suicide; he would've gotten killed in battle later on anyway.  
Didn't Sakumo have long silver hair?

Why don't you grow out your hair? I fancy long hair.  
Maybe that's why you won't grow it out.  
I hate you.

But right now I hate the sun outside more. It's too fucking intense. We should go back inside the basement.

You don't want to, do you? You're still basking in the sun asleep and trying to get whatever amount of heat you can to replace that lost chakra. You look more like a cat than a dog stretched out in the sun like that. It's… fascinating.

Ah, so you are awake. You open your onyx eye and meet them up with mine. I thought no one would ever look into my eyes again, not after I've used my Sharingan on them that is. I'm almost touched by the gesture, but I'm too busy squinting from the damn bright grass and sky.

I guess that's my price for staying sheltered in a dark hole for so long. You don't seem to be bothered by it at all.  
Or are you?  
I can't tell, I can't really see well enough to check myself.

"What are you doing Itachi?"

You speak. I haven't heard a single thing from you since I dug some shuriken in your sides before tying you up with that sharkskin. Your voice is strong but quiet like it always is. There's isn't any fear in it, and has such little amount of curiosity in your voice that it hardly seems like you asked me a question at all.

You certainly are one-of-a-kind.

I'm glad.

"Go back to sleep."

I can tell you're contemplating it.

I don't like my voice. It always sounds the same no matter what is coming from it.  
Dead.

Sometimes I wonder if you killed me a long time ago and I'm just here wandering until I find purgatory. It's accurate enough, I don't remember much of my childhood except when I was happy with Uncle Obito. It's like my mind was wiped clean like a palette and all that remained from my childhood was him.  
I think I did it to myself. No one in my clan could.

You seem very tired; I wish you'd keep resting.

Then again, I'm not one for sleeping either.

But I think you'll forfeit this battle. The sun may be brighter than your chidori, but it's warm and lulling and you're already exhausted. There are many things to be said, even more things to be questioned, for both of us, but now is not the time.

Your mask is flecked with brown flaky spots along with your arms and under your breast. My hands too. I rub my fingers together as it turns powdery and blows away. Dry. Your blood has run dry.

But never cold.

You're special.


	3. Kill

Do you remember that song they used to play in the ANBU?

I bet they don't play it anymore. I'm sure they don't. I'm not surprised, afterall, I'm the one who introduced it to everyone.

Of all the things that first made me feel belonged to the ANBU squad, it was this, so of course they have had to dismantle it by now. You must remember it still. It had no rhyme and no reason but the words that came out were so accurate of a job description that I almost thought that I made a friend in you with the song. Everyone trusted me from then on, I was the youngest ANBU, but I knew how all of the strings were played.

Yet was severed by me. Don't get me, wrong, I have no regrets over it. I just wish I had that song still.

All I know by heart to it after all these years is the small part that went like

"_Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604."_

_And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin' up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he started jumpin' up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sergeant came over, pinned a metal on me, sent me down the hall, said "You're our boy."_

Do you remember that? I don't think that was what bought you in the song but I was certainly sold out. Alice's Restaurant. That was it. It wasn't really about Alice or a restaurant but all the hell they went through with officials.

But it created a bond, with you, with everyone. It's gone now, right? We're enemies.

It's dark outside. It's much better now that the damn sun set. You're still asleep in the grass, I'm still sitting here next to you but the stars are out.

You must be wondering by now. No, the sticky sweet coating on my hands isn't your blood. Don't worry. A kid wandered too far from home. Wandered over here. You can find his mangled body over there in the bushes if you want to make sure I'm not lying.

But I suppose you'd just trust my word on that one. That smell, that reeking rotting smell of flesh and bone and blood burnt and broken and exploding all over the grass and nearby shrubs…smell of satisfaction, of victory, of undeniable death.

Do I enjoy my new career too much? I wonder sometimes.

You stir again. Good, I was getting impatient. Waiting most of the day can do that to someone. Your eye opens again, a little more alert than before. The warm sun must have caused a little bit more lethargy than you normally dispense. Your head tilts upward, eye meets perfectly with my hands before anything.

You had to of smelled that kid. Smelled his blood.

You say nothing. I return the silence while brushing the blood off of my fingernails. I don't need to look at them to know there's burnt umber and crimson liquid glued to the indigo nail polish coating. Who's to say a man can't wear nail polish? If I cared about what people thought about me, I wouldn't have become a nukenin.

"I see you never got over your nasty habit of staring at people." Touché.

"Maybe I stare because people wear masks to hide insecurity." You reiterate the silence as reprimand while glancing up at my eyes momentarily before shifting your head even further back to stare up at the sky.

You have a lot to say to me.

There was a lot of tension in the air the last we met. You had your companions, which I know come before everything to you, and I had my goal to retrieve the Kyuubi. I went easy on you that day. You know that too. I could have eliminated you the instant you were bound to Tsukiyomi. But I didn't.

I still don't know why.

Fact of the matter is, the last time we talked, we really, honestly, talked… probably was about six years ago. Before I ran away and wiped out my clan. Before you quit the ANBU and took up teaching. Before the third died and I joined Akatsuki. Before Orochimaru pulled together the country of sound with our temporary help. And hell, I probably don't know what's been going on with you. I know you're involved with Sasuke, which I also want to know how that came about.

But… I suppose first things first.

"_And the sergeant came over, pinned a metal on me, sent me down the hall, said "You're our boy_."

Your head immediately is brought down to me. I suppose you haven't heard that in forever either. You look a little startled, but it passes just as quickly. I'll take that as you recognize it.

Maybe there's hope yet. For what, I'm not sure.

"_Didn't feel too good about it_."

Ahh, that's right. That was the following last line. I forgot voluntarily, the verse was just as good to me without it.

But I guess not to you. You could never go around killing people like me. Not in this way. Not without your means of reason, your means of _justice_, which is kind of a vague theory as it is.

"None of us thought you would be a music person." The air is cold and you sit up, wrap your thin muscular fingers around your arms in an attempt to keep heat inside them. Still chilly I see.

"I'm not."

"We figured that out a bit too late apparently." _I wanna kill._

I felt a smile break its way through.

"Apparently."


	4. Eyes

Night. The only time of the day I'd marginally almost _like_. Maybe it's because stalkers and rapists and murderers haunt the night with uncanny stealth and quick blade to get the job done quickly and efficiently.

They are the real people. The people that don't run away from their nature. These people I can only admire, even if their victim was me.  
Not that any simple rapist or murderer could possibly inflict pain upon me.  
Still, the night has always been dark and vial, filled with fears, filled with anxiety, filled with horror.

But how is the night supposedly romantic? Well, I never got love in the begin with, but the idea that people idolized exploding balls of gas and creeping predators to set a mood of sentimental feelings is just… completely absurd.  
You're logical, you must think there's something odd about that.  
Humans are just weird I suppose. Ode' to challenge for me. I don't really care otherwise.

Well, back to the point. You're lost in your own chain of thoughts too I see.

What are you thinking about? Is it about the ANBU? Me?

No, there's no reason to think about those things. Past. I'm in your past and you're in mine.

We're just reliving for the hell of it right now. Maybe as a reminder to the other as to say, 'Yeah, I'm still here. Yeah, I'm still doing the same old same old.'

Or maybe you're pondering about something else. Something recent. Something that involves a comrade or friend. Some tragedy in their life. Or perhaps even your own.

What are you thinking about?

I want answers.

"What happened to you?"

It's a simple question that covered everything really; I was wise to pick through vocabulary.

I could tell, you've changed since I last saw you and used my Tsukiyomi. You're not very good at concealing things from me, it was carefully spelled out when my techniques of pain caused hardly any reaction. I cut you to ribbons with my katana and you don't even give a mere wince. You weren't any fun, you know?

Maybe that was why I let you live again for a second time.

When your fear of my power, my Sharingan, that I could so easily manipulate in our previous façade was dashed and replace with apathy.

But even when apathy was necessary for ANBU, you still feared me in a silent way.

Something broke you recently.

It's as clear as day. The fact my words have left you speechless in mild shock is almost insulting.

Yes, I can read you like a book.

Yes, I will read you like a book.

Perhaps maybe we could lay it all out on the table so we can plan accordingly from there. What broke you? It wasn't my Tsukiyomi, I know it wasn't my Tsukiyomi.

You've grown stronger. Fiercer. Colder.

Something broke you and denial sure as hell isn't going to fix it.

Your eyes look away. Both of them. Both of you turn aside.

But your lips are still moving under that dark fabric. The glow of the moon barely makes the silent words being retorted visible. In ANBU brigade724 code.

-'Why don't you tell me?'-

I don't understand. Don't beat around the bush or you'll end up in the bush with that kid who wandered to the wrong place at the wrong time.

-'I didn't break you,'- I mouth back. It seemed alien to start up using that again. Every two years the ANBU would change the code around so nukenin such as myself couldn't crack it and predict attacks and battle formations/ adjustments.

Brigade724. The last brigade I was in, the last code I was taught.

You're speechless again.

Have you really nothing to say?  
Or really nothing you have to say?

"Why do you want to know?" You turned your back on me, curled your knees up to your chest to keep warm. You're still shivering.  
You have to have lots of gall to turn your back on me like that. You've always had some sense of rebellion, of pride, of reaction without thought.

But now it's worse than I've ever seen it.

"Who broke you?" I asked again, evading your question.

I can see it right through your back, you're grimacing. You know you can't leave with me here, especially since you're lacking almost all of your chakra. You know you do what I say when I say it or else you're dead.  
But you don't seem to mind being dead, just the obeying part.

"Why," You growl softly, resting your head on top of your knees and letting loose silver hair fall across your face.

You really should grow it out.

"I want to know what's wrong with my toy," I mutter sarcastically while staring spitefully at your back. You know you can't get away with remarks such as that without some sort of rebuke.  
I watched your body visibly cringe and slowly turn back to me, eyebrows raised with concern and curiosity. And it hit me.

Damn my monotone voice. Damn your perversion.

Whatever. Think what you want. It's not my concern.

"Itachi… that has to be on the top five most disturbing things you've ever said to me…"  
Your games are cute, but they're getting irritating.

"Shut up and answer me." I quickly realized that I shouldn't have said anything.  
A grin slid on your face and your eye narrowed cheerfully. Somehow, I wasn't surprised at what came next.

"Do you want me to shut up or answer? I'm not quite sure I can do both-"

"Don't be a smartass," I cut you off swiftly. I had to end your fun before you could rattle off with nonsense. Not one of your qualities I found amusing. Definitely.

"Aren't you the life of the party," You pout but drop it. "I'll try."

And you stared back up at the stars with morose, almost brooding eyes.  
Eyes I haven't seen in a long time.


	5. Failed

You'll never change, will you?

You still have no sense of humor.

Your eyes are just as emotionless and cold as ever. Silent, giving away nothing but the death that is inevitable for those who indulge in them too long.

I thought I'd never be reminded of that song again. I thought I'd never hear those words in my head again.

But the past lives on.  
_This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the  
__restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,  
__that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's  
__Restaurant._

_You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant  
__You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant  
__Walk right in it's around the back  
__Just a half a mile from the railroad track  
__You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant_

_Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on  
__Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the  
__restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the  
__church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and  
__Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of  
__room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room,  
__seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't  
__have to take out their garbage for a long time._

_We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be  
__a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So  
__we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW  
__microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed  
__on toward the city dump._

_Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across, across the  
__dump, saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump  
__closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off  
__into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage._

_We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the  
__side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the  
__cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile  
__is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we  
__decided to throw our's down._

_That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving  
__dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the  
__next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid,  
__we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of  
__garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And  
__I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope  
__under that garbage."_

_After speaking to Obie for about forty-five minutes on the telephone we  
__finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down  
__and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the  
__police officer's station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the  
__shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the  
__police officer's station._

_Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at  
__the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for  
__being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and  
__we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out  
__and told us never to be seen driving garbage around the vicinity again,  
__which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station  
__there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was  
__both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I  
__can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid.  
__Get in the back of the patrol car."_

You were the crime of the century.

At least, to me you were.

You're a thief. A traitor. A murderer.

But you're still the man I admired. Your power. Your intellect. Your composure.

Your leadership.

You aren't my leader anymore.

Uchiha Itachi.

Never again.

I told myself never again. But I let it happen again. I tried to change it, I tried to make it better, to fix the weld in his heart.

I've lost three close people. Three Uchihas.

"Sasuke ran off to chase power," I murmur softly. I just didn't want him to leave like you did. I just wanted to steer him off of the path of a nukenin bent on revenge.

I was wrong.

You stay silent. I don't know what you'll think about it. In a way, it was your fault I lost him. In the same sense, it was your fault that I gained him.

Why do I befriend Uchihas so easily? Why do they have to leave me every time?

Why?

Maybe someday I'll learn to keep away from your kind.  
Am I really that thick headed?

"So what of it."

You couldn't careless about him now, could you? I suppose so. Why did you carry him around on your shoulders in the village, why did you show him affection all those years when you were going to tear him down in the end?  
Or were you not counting upon crushing him?

No, you definitely were. Or else you wouldn't have become an ANBU. A leader. My comrade.

"I… thought could show him a better path."  
I failed again.


	6. Truth

Irony. The bitter symbolism or connection between things that should be irrelevant.  
Sasuke. You. Me. The last living wielders of the Sharingan. Intertwined so deeply, it was beyond blood. Interconnected, tracing back...

So, what do you think you're really doing?  
Taking up my little brother as your student. Sasuke. What did you hope in that? Did you really find him promising as a shinobi? Was it out of pity?

Oh, but you couldn't have done it for _that_ reason. A blood thirsty hunter, ANBU Hound, couldn't feel pity after the five years of hunting and killing men, women, and children _daily_. No, because this world was so ironic, so intertwined, it had to be because...

No.

"Kakashi," I growl.

What were you trying to prove?

You stay silent. You know damn well why this you've changed, why you accepted Sasuke.  
You wanted to undo the damage I had done to him. Take back the images I put in his head of dead family members and blood skewed across the buildings like expressionistic artwork. Take back that hatred and helplessness I filled him with. Take back his thirst for atonement in my death.

You really are a fool. A hopeless dreamer.  
What a misleading thought. Luck and irony, after all, is a ninja's third hand.

"When will you give up," I shook my head slowly, my bangs blowing in my face.

Still silent. That's my job, you moron. You ingenious moron. Sharp wit, even if you don't realize it. It's on the tip of your nose, I'm holding it there, a dangling piece of raw flesh off of some misfortunate foul, wild beast, over your head, and you can smell it, a unique stench so powerful it would make any shinobi tear up from the acidity and blood stinging their eyes.  
But you'd enjoy it because that's all you can do once you've sold your soul to the ANBU.  
And I won't let you have it.  
Not yet.

"Why did you leave?" You realize that I don't necessarily require an answer. Most shinobi don't. Our job is to interpret after all. Not sure yet if I want to give you one.  
For you to question this though only shows how those fools back in Konoha are still as naive as ever. If no one has tracked the point of discontinuity, my real split, from their so called "society" based on "morals" and "justice". If they didn't know "why" by now.

They never will in reality. But there's always a second side to it, another reality behind the mask, which only the Sharingan can see beyond. It's one that I teeter on.  
Glancing at you again, remembering you plastered to the floor cut to ribbons... I decided.

"Power." Your face becomes pensive, hardened with intense thought on deep levels, and lean forward toward me, eye fixed on me seriously. Not deadly though. I'm not sure if I'd rather have it that way.

"What is the good of power if you can't use it for something?"  
Use. Everything in this world is determined by use. Use of chakra, use of strength, use of knowledge, use of instincts and environment. Use of a ninja and the funds that come in from their services. But use of power? It was something different.  
This is the closest I've felt to being alive.

"I use and I waste it as much as I want to. Not what other weaker people want me to do with it." To enjoy myself, to not enjoy myself.

Are you enjoying yourself?

The bait's still above your head, though, whether my fanning it will make a difference in smell is still unknown. Sharp nose, sharp wit.

"Get to the point." Apparently not. As expected. Diversion tactics were never that efficient against you, were they?

My eyes are dark and foreboding, always condemned with damnation, as I stare at you. We've both come a long way, discussing what went wrong where... it's far too tedious to think about.  
But I've never forgotten for a moment what I wanted. Since I've heard of your stories with Uncle Obito. Since I saw you pass the Chuunin exam at 6. Since I saw you pass the Jounin exam at 13. Why I joined the ANBU, became your leader and watched you kill and fall into your own pit of darkness.

What I really wanted and why I let Sasuke live...

"I want you to feel like you're nothing."  
Your body stiffens as it hits you, the pieces of the puzzle no longer vague, standing out like that carcass smell, but right there in the open to anyone who considered themselves ninja. I watch you for a while, fascinated by your reaction.  
What do you think about this? About my relation to Sasuke, about how I really have felt about you?  
That you are the reason and undoing of our clan and of every scrape of humanity in Sasuke? In me?  
It doesn't matter. I ignore your shocked eyes fixed on me, wavering with confusion, maybe even weakness, move over beside you and grab you by the shoulder, gripping it tightly. My cold hand pierces your skin as you shudder, instinctively jerking back and resisting, trying to tear away from me, clawing for distance. But it's futile with your chakra so depleted, and I pull you forward roughly, meeting my knee to your abdomen. You hang there for a moment, coughing wetly, blood or spit or even intestinal juices lurching in your throat, and rolled over onto the grass again, clutching your sides.  
Your pain is refreshing as I weave my fingers into your fair silver hair, grabbing a fistful of it.  
Abusing beautiful things was something I'd like to call a specialty.  
The light in your eyes, your consciousness behind them faded away before I was able to pull your head up to look at me.

Enjoy the flesh of the raw truth.

But I'm no where near done with you yet.


	7. Pain

I never meant any harm.  
I didn't know I was hurting anyone when I became the youngest to attain the genin rank, the chuunin rank, and the jounin rankin all of Konoha's history.  
I didn't know.  
I didn't mean.

But I still did. Everything I try to do positive for the village creates a ripple of negative that, eventually, reaches back to the positive I had done.  
It's just like father. I can't believe I still ended up like him.  
I can't forgive myself either. Knowing that, this entire time, it was my fault.

You were the one trying to attain my level. That was how it started. I was the older, full-fledged, you the younger more inexperienced. I was 4 years ahead of you, almost half a decade your senior.

And it makes everything fit together so perfectly. Only reality could be this horrible. Only the reality behind your reason.

My eye feels heavy as it manages to flutter open to the darkness, filling the room. My limbs ache inside and out, aches everywhere as I realize I can't decipher where this is, can't move. Numb down to the bone.

You're not here. At least, as far as I can tell, I don't think you are. I don't feel your intense eyes on me, watching me from whatever twisted branch you perch on above. Maybe I'm just lost in my mind again. Maybe you were lost all along.  
Or we're both lost in different places.  
That's not it.  
Where are you?

I knew your family. I definitely knew them. Cold hardened bunch, they certainly were. They pushed you, they pushed Sasuke, they pushed around everyone in the family they could.  
They did it for their pride. The glory of the Uchiha, the prestige that had to remain strict and vigil.

I was being pushed too. Though, certainly not to the degree your family had surmised. I was the last of my family's name, the last to restore its crumbling structure.  
I never did.  
But they knew I was worth silver in the village, for my skill, proficiency high above others could, even you, and for that time I was just a valuable body to head out to the fading front lines at the end of the Amato war.  
I know there were times when they told me to turn back. That I was going too far too fast for anyone to cope with. I brushed off their requests, attained jounin rank. Even after the Yondaime died, I hadn't taken his advice. I just pushed even harder, for his ultimate fiery sacrifice; I had to push harder into the depths of the ANBU.

Why couldn't have I quit there?

I have no doubt. The Uchiha family was angry at my talent of wielding the Sharingan with such accuracy, even able to unlock, at that point of time, the final stage the Sharingan that should _naturally_ occur in. There was always that cold unease in the air whenever I approached any of them, especially when I was in the ANBU, in their territory of lineage and might.

You were the only one able to beat me to the only thing I couldn't attain.  
An ANBU record. The youngest to dare enlist into the ANBU, take up the mask, you were even 13 when they appointed you the new ANBU commander in my place.  
I didn't mind then.  
But that wasn't it.  
You still haunted me.

The greatest prodigy in Konoha, they made me. I can hardly grasp the concept of you, at any point of time, ever feeling that I was your superior. The way you say my name with the honorifics, giving it respect and yet loathing it all the same.

You had your own agenda of revenge. So expectantly unique that no one could grasp the idea anyone would go through this over one person.  
In your purposeful brutality, you made Sasuke seek vengeance upon yourself. By this, and through your betrayal, you made me the only remaining Sharingan user in the village. Sasuke survival merely gave us bleak hope, a tease of sorts. And then, even when Sasuke had obtained his Sharingan, he used it for his power lust. Heleft tochase you, not do as I had advised all the same. Now again I am the only Sharingan user our village can depend on. I am the last of the Hatake and the Uchiha. Konoha has lost all of its renowned warriors of the art and you struck the country I love's blood for my especial suffering.

All this time I had believed you to be my comrade under our country, forpeople like Naruto who shine above all of the disarray and hell. Fight to protect them, to cherish them even if just a bit longer. I was so delusional.  
I don't think I can face him now.  
I can't face anyone. How could I? Naruto, he fought so gallantly, willing to push it beyond to the bitter end if he must to surmount Sasuke's quest, and to look at him now with the guilt that I had been the original spark that foresaw this result in the end? To see Sakura, her smile still pained with the malevolent memory and burying all the years of pain she suffered in his wake and selfishness, the tears she refused to give into again clawing at her heart nonetheless.  
And to know, to realize, it started with me.

Suffering.I know it's beyond my numb body as I stiffly lay on the ground, dirt and rock, I can tell now that its dirt again, I'm in the cave. Are we both in the cave? I still can't feel and I'm far too exhausted to move. Has this been enough to satisfy you?

If this was what you really wanted of me… maybe I'll be graced with joy you could never show or feel.

Reality, afterall, penetrates those layers of pain just as well, if not better, than your eyes.  
Itachi.


End file.
